A queer instance of characteristic nature in an animal is worth recording, although the creature could scarcely be considered a sufferer from the flood. One man, whose house was swept away and lodged on an embankment lower down, had a pet hog, whose dwelling had been under the house. Of course the man imagined him drowned, as no one had thought of him in the haste of the flight. The day after, when the fury of the waters was somewhat spent, the man and his son paddled out to the house to see if anything had escaped. On going in through the upstairs window, they found that the hog had coolly walked in and up the stairs, and, selecting a feather-bed, was now reclining very comfortably in the very middle of it, entirely unhurt!
But only this gentleman of ease and the wreckers profited by the great flood. To others it came like a cruel and stealthy foe, sweeping all before its merciless rush. One little girl, two years old, snatched from her bed and barely saved, said the next day, with a little face still sunshiny, as she pointed to their roof, just seen, with the upper windows above the waters: “Dess see! The flood came, and it dess took everysing—dollies and all!” M.
Several correspondents write kindly correcting an error in the February “Letter-Box,” page 301, in the item about “King Alfred and the Cakes.” It was “Prince William, son of Henry I.,” not “of Henry II.,” who was drowned.
Athens, Ohio.
Dear St. Nicholas: Reading what Jack said in February about the little birds being killed by flying against the telegraph wires, I thought I would write and say that we often pick them up. They look soft and pretty, as if they were asleep, as they are not cut and their feathers are not rumpled. I also want to tell you about my canary-birds. My little Toppie hatched three little singers, which I named Tom, Dick, and Harry. I sold Harry to pay for my St. Nicholas. We sent Dick to a little girl who had been praying for a bird. She was so glad to get it that she said she must be a good little girl. We still have the other one, who is singing nearly all the time. I was twelve on Washington’s birthday. I have one sister and three brothers, and we all love the St. Nicholas.—Your affectionate reader, Hattie F. Nourse.
Dear St. Nicholas: I have a dolly twenty-five years old. I am going to take her to Saratoga this summer. I think it will do her good. I am seven years old. I like St. Nicholas ever so much.
Mattie Wyckoff.